In recent years, a transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment is increasingly receiving attentions as a treatment method to patients of various neural diseases for which medication is not always effective. The transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment is a relatively new treatment method capable of applying magnetic stimulation to a particular region of the brain (brain nerve, for example) by a magnetic field generating source provided on the surface of a patient's scalp, thereby providing a treatment and/or relieving symptoms. Unlike the conventional electric stimulation requiring a craniotomy procedure and using an implanted electrode that makes a patient highly uncomfortable, the transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment is expected to be broadly used as a treatment method that is non-invasive and less stressful for patients.
As a specific method of such a transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment, there is known a method of applying electrical current to a coil provided on the surface of a patient's scalp, regionally generating a small pulsed magnetic field, generating eddy current within a cranium based on a principle of electromagnetic induction, and applying stimulation to the brain nerve immediately under the coil (see Patent Literature 1, for example).
According to Patent Literature 1, it is confirmed that the transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment provided according to the above method effectively relieves intractable neuropathic pains, and in addition, provides a higher effect for pain relief by applying focal stimulation more accurately. However, it is also disclosed that optimum stimulating regions of individual patients are slightly different.
Therefore, in order to achieve a higher effect with the transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment, it is important how an optimum stimulating region on a patient's head is determined for each patient, or more specifically, how three-dimensional positioning of a magnetic coil to the patient's head is performed accurately. It should be noted that it is also known that even if the position of the magnetic coil is the same, an achieved effect varies depending on an orientation (posture) of the coil.
Known configurations of the positioning of such a magnetic coil include positioning of a magnetic coil on the patient's head utilizing an optical tracking system using infrared rays (see Patent Literatures 2 and 3, for example), and some are commercially available and applied in clinical settings. In addition, Patent Literature 4 discloses a device capable of positioning a magnetic coil on the patient's head using an articulated robot.
Further, Patent Literature 1 also discloses that a pain relief effect by performing the transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment described above lasts for on the order of several hours, but not for days or longer. Therefore, in terms of the pain relief, it is considered to be desirable to perform the treatment continuously, without taking a long interval, preferably every day. In order to allow such a continuous treatment to be performed without imposing too much burden on a patient such as physically and in terms of time, it is ideal that a treatment at home or at a personal doctor's office in the neighborhood be made possible.
However, all of the conventional transcranial magnetic stimulators including devices and systems for coil positioning as described above are intended to be used in a relatively large-scale hospital or a research institute for an examination or a research by skillful specialized physicians. Accordingly, such devices are complicated in handling and operation, require a lot of skill to use, and are quite large-scaled and expensive. For this reason, it is generally difficult for a patient, a family member of the patient, or the patient's personal doctor in the neighborhood who is not necessarily an expert at the magnetic stimulation to perform a treatment by operating the stimulator. In addition, in order to install the stimulator at the patient's own house, a relatively small-scale doctor's office, a clinic, or such, the cost is too much and it is also generally difficult to secure an installation space.
Therefore, patients taking the transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment have no choice but to visit a large hospital having a large-scale magnetic stimulator installed and skillful specialized physicians every time taking the treatment, or to stay in the hospital, and are forced to bear a large burden in various aspects in order to take the treatment continuously and repeatedly.
Thus, the inventors of this application have proposed, in Patent Literature 5, a smaller and less expensive magnetic stimulator that can be easily handled and operated and allows a patient to perform a transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment continuously and repeatedly on a daily basis at home, a personal doctor's office in the neighborhood, or such. Further, as a method of guiding the magnetic coil to the three-dimensional position and posture corresponding to the optimum position and posture at which the magnetic stimulation is to be applied using such an electromagnetic stimulation device, the inventers have proposed a method of guiding the magnetic coil to the three-dimensional position and posture corresponding to the optimum position and posture, for example, by additionally providing a magnetic field generating means such as a permanent magnet for a coil holder of the magnetic coil, and by utilizing a set of pieces of data combining as a pair the data of at least the position (preferably, the position and posture) of the magnetic field generating means, and the data relating to the intensity and direction of the magnetic field generated at this position and detected by the magnetic field detecting means such as a magnetic sensor. As used herein, the set of pieces of data is referred to as a “data pair” or a “data set” as appropriate.
The method of guiding the magnetic coil utilizing the data set involves a problem that it is necessary to collect a large number of data sets (at least on the order of 500 sets) for each patient previously in the hospital, and the collection of the data sets results in a significant burden for the doctor.
In this regard, Patent Literature 5 has proposed that a collecting operation of data sets is divided into a part that may be carried out only by the doctor and a part that can be carried out by a person other than the doctor, and that the collecting operation of the data sets other than the determination of the optimum stimulation position and posture is performed, for example, as a part of a pre-shipment examination by a manufacturer (maker) of the electromagnetic stimulation device separately from the determination of the optimum stimulation position and posture by the doctor in the hospital.